A review by tasmanian_bibliophile
Death in the City of Light: The True Story of the Serial Killer Who Terrorised Wartime Paris by David King

4.0

‘The greatness of man lies in the decision to be stronger than his condition.’ (Camus)

In 1944, three months before D-Day, some Parisians in the 16th Arrondissement started complaining about the thick, acrid smoke coming from a town house at 21, Rue Le Sueur. Finally, one neighbour worried about a chimney fire, called the authorities. They discovered that the basement of the mansion, festooned with human bones, contained a coal stove burning body parts. An outbuilding contained a strange triangular room that was virtually soundproof. The former stable contained a pit of about 10 feet in depth which was filed with quicklime and rotting flesh. In this way, one of history’s most macabre episodes of serial murder was uncovered.

‘No one ever knows if he is crazy or not,’ Petiot said. ‘You can only be crazy by comparison’.

The investigation quickly focussed on the building’s owner: Dr Marcel Petiot, a quick-witted and charming medical doctor with a checkered past. Petiot had obtained reimbursement from the state for unorthodox treatments for which he had sometimes also charged the patients, and he was also implicated in narcotics dealing. Petiot also claimed to be part of a Resistance organization helping people, especially Jews, to escape from Nazi Europe - for a sizeable fee.

But as Commissaire Georges-Victor Massu, chief of the Brigade Criminelle, discovered, few (if any) of Petiot’s clients made it safely to their destinations. Petiot collected their money and possessions, which he stashed away in several properties he had acquired around Nazi-dominated Paris. Just how many people did Petiot kill? Was he working for the Gestapo, or for the Resistance? Could he have been working for both, or neither?

‘Indeed, no one has ever established the total number of victims, which could be anything from a handful to 26 (the court’s opinion) 63 (Petiot’s claim), 150 (Dr Paul’s off-the-record estimate), or perhaps even more (Director of the Police Judiciaire Rene Desvaux’s guess).’

David King’s interest in this case was piqued by a contemporary account he found at an antiquarian bookshop. He was able to gain access to the police records of the case, which had been classified for sixty years. This has enabled him to provide a wealth of detail about the case, and about the Nazi-occupied Paris in which it occurred. Commissaire Massu had initially assumed that the Gestapo was behind the carnage, and didn’t question or arrest Petiot until after he received orders from the Germans. Petiot was able to evade arrest for seven months. During his last weeks of freedom, he successfully masqueraded as a Free French Army Officer investigating the case.

This is a well-paced narrative of a dreadful crime. The second half of the book focusses on Petiot’s farcical trial in 1946. So many people became involved as interested parties that the investigation and evidence became secondary. Petiot was declared guilty and sentenced to death: the complete facts of the case will never be known.

’Did Petiot have a last confession or any final words? ‘No’, he said. ‘I am a traveller who is taking all of his baggage with him.’

Jennifer Cameron-Smith